An American Tragedy (56 page)

But now, so thrilled was he at the possibility of a reencounter with Sondra, he decided that he would cancel this last evening engagement with Roberta, although not without some misgivings as to the difficulty as well as the decency of it. For despite the fact that he was now so lured by Sondra, nevertheless he was still deeply interested in Roberta and he did not like to grieve her in this way. She would look so disappointed, as he knew. Yet at the same time so flattered and enthused was he by this sudden, if tardy, social development that he could not now think of refusing Jill. What? Neglect to visit the Steeles in Gloversville and in company with the Trumbulls and without any help from the Griffiths, either? It might be disloyal, cruel, treacherous to Roberta, but was he not likely to meet Sondra?

In consequence he announced that he would go, but immediately afterwards decided that he must go round and explain to Roberta, make some suitable excuse—that the Griffiths, for instance, had invited him for dinner. That would be sufficiently overawing and compelling to her. But upon arriving, and finding her out, he decided to explain the following morning at the factory—by note, if necessary. To make up for it he decided he might promise to accompany her as far as Fonda on Saturday and give her her present then.

But on Friday morning at the factory, instead of explaining to her with the seriousness and even emotional dissatisfaction which would have governed him before, he now whispered: “I have to break that engagement to-night, honey. Been invited to my uncle’s, and I have to go. And I’m not sure that I can get around afterwards. I’ll try if I get through in time. But I’ll see you on the Fonda car to-morrow if I don’t. I’ve got something I want to give you, so don’t feel too bad. Just got word this morning or I’d have let you know. You’re not going to feel bad, are you?” He looked at her as gloomily as possible in order to express his own sorrow over this.

But Roberta, her presents and her happy last evening with him put aside in this casual way, and for the first time, too, in this fashion, shook her head negatively, as if to say “Oh, no,” but her spirits were heavily depressed and she fell to wondering what this sudden desertion of her at this time might portend. For, up to this time, Clyde had been attentiveness itself, concealing his recent contact with Sondra behind a veil of pretended, unmodified affection which had, as yet, been sufficient to deceive her. It might be true, as he said, that an unescapable invitation had come up which necessitated all this. But, oh, the happy evening she had planned! And now they would not be together again for three whole days. She grieved dubiously at the factory and in her room afterwards, thinking that Clyde might at least have suggested coming around to her room late, after his uncle’s dinner in order that she might give him the presents. But his eventual excuse made this day was that the dinner was likely to last too late. He could not be sure. They had talked of going somewhere else afterwards.

But meanwhile Clyde, having gone to the Trumbulls’, and later to the Steeles’, was flattered and reassured by a series of developments such as a month before he would not have dreamed of anticipating. For at the Steeles’ he was promptly introduced to a score of personalities there who, finding him chaperoned by the Trumbulls and learning that he was a Griffiths, as promptly invited him to affairs of their own—or hinted at events that were to come to which he might be invited, so that at the close he found himself with cordial invitations to attend a New Year’s dance at the Vandams’ in Gloversville, as well as a dinner and dance that was to be given Christmas Eve by the Harriets in Lycurgus, an affair to which Gilbert and his sister Bella, as well as Sondra, bertine and others were invited.

And lastly, there was Sondra herself appearing on the scene at about midnight in company with Scott Nicholson, Freddie Sells and Bertine, at first pretending to be wholly unaware of his presence, yet deigning at last to greet him with an, “Oh, hello, I didn’t expect to find you here.” She was draped most alluringly in a deep red Spanish shawl. But Clyde could sense from the first that she was quite aware of his presence, and at the first available opportunity he drew near to her and asked yearningly, “Aren’t you going to dance with me at all?”

“Why, of course, if you want me to. I thought maybe you had forgotten me by now,” she said mockingly.

“As though I’d be likely to forget you. The only reason I’m here to-night is because I thought I might see you again. I haven’t thought of any one or anything else since I saw you last.”

Indeed so infatuated was he with her ways and airs, that instead of being irritated by her pretended indifference, he was all the more attracted. And he now achieved an intensity which to her was quite compelling. His eyelids narrowed and his eyes lit with a blazing desire which was quite disturbing to see.

“My, but you can say the nicest things in the nicest way when you want to.” She was toying with a large Spanish comb in her hair for the moment and smiling. “And you say them just as though you meant them.”

“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me, Sondra,” he inquired almost feverishly, this second use of her name thrilling her now as much as it did them. Although inclined to frown on so marked a presumption in his case, she let it pass because it was pleasing to her.

“Oh, yes, I do. Of course,” she said a little dubiously, and for the first time nervously, where he was concerned. She was beginning to find it a little hard to decipher her proper line of conduct in connection with him, whether to repress him more or less. “But you must say now what dance you want. I see some one coming for me.” And she held her small program up to him archly and intriguingly. “You may have the eleventh. That’s the next after this.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, and the fourteenth, then, greedy,” she laughed into Clyde’s eyes, a laughing look which quite enslaved him.

Subsequently learning from Frank Harriet in the course of a dance that Clyde had been invited to his house for Christmas Eve, as well as that Jessica Phant had invited him to Utica for New Year’s Eve, she at once conceived of him as slated for real success and decided that he was likely to prove less of a social burden than she had feared. He was charming—there was no doubt of it. And he was so devoted to her. In consequence, as she now decided, it might be entirely possible that some of these other girls, seeing him recognized by some of the best people here and elsewhere, would become sufficiently interested, or drawn to him even, to wish to overcome his devotion to her. Being of a vain and presumptuous disposition herself, she decided that that should not be. Hence, in the course of her second dance with Clyde, she said: “You’ve been invited to the Harriets’ for Christmas Eve, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and I owe it all to you, too,” he exclaimed warmly. “Are you going to be there?”

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry. I am invited and I wish now that I was going. But you know I arranged some time ago to go over to Albany and then up to Saratoga for the holidays. I’m going to-morrow, but I’ll be back before New Year’s. Some friends of Freddie’s are giving a big affair over in Schenectady New Year’s Eve, though. And your cousin Bella and my brother Stuart and Grant and Bertine are going. If you’d like to go, you might go along with us over there.”

She had been about to say “me,” but had changed it to “us.” She was thinking that this would certainly demonstrate her control over him to all those others, seeing that it nullified Miss Phant’s invitation. And at once Clyde accepted, and with delight, since it would bring him in contact with her again.

At the same time he was astonished and almost aghast over the fact that in this casual and yet very intimate and definite way she was planning for him to reëncounter Bella, who would at once carry the news of his going with her and these others to her family. And what would not that spell, seeing that even as yet the Griffiths had not invited him anywhere—not even for Christmas? For although the fact of Clyde having been picked up by Sondra in her car as well as later, that he had been invited to the Now and Then, had come to their ears, still nothing had been done. Gilbert Griffiths was wroth, his father and mother puzzled as to their proper course but remaining inactive nonetheless.

But the group, according to Sondra, might remain in Schenectady until the following morning, a fact which she did not trouble to explain to Clyde at first. And by now he had forgotten that Roberta, having returned from her long stay at Blitz by then, and having been deserted by him over Christmas, would most assuredly be expecting him to spend New Year’s Eve with her. That was a complication which was to dawn later. Now he only saw bliss in Sondra’s thought of him and at once eagerly and enthusiastically agreed.

“But you know,” she said cautiously, “you mustn’t pay so very much attention to me over there or here or anywhere or think anything of it, if I don’t to you. I may not be able to see so very much of you if you do. I’ll tell you about that sometime. You see my father and mother are funny people. And so are some of my friends here. But if you’ll just be nice and sort of indifferent—you know—I may be able to see quite a little of you this winter yet. Do you see?”

Thrilled beyond words by this confession, which came because of his too ardent approaches as he well knew, he looked at her eagerly and searchingly.

“But you care for me a little, then, don’t you?” he half-demanded, half-pleaded, his eyes lit with that alluring light which so fascinated her. And cautious and yet attracted, swayed sensually and emotionally and yet dubious as to the wisdom of her course, Sondra replied: “Well, I’ll tell you. I do and I don’t. That is, I can’t tell yet. I like you a lot. Sometimes I think I like you more than others. You see we don’t know each other very well yet. But you’ll come with me to Schenectady, though, won’t you?”

“Oh, will I?”

“I’ll write you more about that, or call you up. You have a telephone haven’t you?”

He gave her the number.

“And if by any chance there’s any change or I have to break the engagement, don’t think anything of it. I’ll see you later—somewhere, sure.” She smiled and Clyde felt as though he were choking. The mere thought of her being so frank with him, and saying that she cared for him a lot, at times, was sufficient to cause him to almost reel with joy. To think that this beautiful girl was so anxious to include him in her life if she could—this wonderful girl who was surrounded by so many friends and admirers from which she could take her pick.

SIX-THIRTY the following morning. And Clyde, after but a single hour’s rest after his return from Gloversville, rising, his mind full of mixed and troubled thoughts as to how to readjust his affairs in connection with Roberta. She was going to Biltz to-day. He had promised to go as far as Fonda. But now he did not want to go. Of course he would have to concoct some excuse. But what?

Fortunately the day before he had heard Whiggam tell Liggett there was to be a meeting of department heads after closing hours in Smillie’s office to-day, and that he was to be there. Nothing was said to Clyde, since his department was included in Liggett’s, but now he decided that he could offer this as a reason and accordingly, about an hour before noon, he dropped a note on her desk which read:

At first, since she could not read it at once, Roberta was pleased because she imagined it contained some further favorable word about the afternoon. But on opening it in the ladies’ rest room a few minutes afterwards, her face fell. Coupled as this was with the disappointment of the preceding evening, when Clyde had failed to appear, together with his manner of the morning which to her had seemed self-absorbed, if not exactly distant, she began to wonder what it was that was bringing about this sudden change. Perhaps he could not avoid attending a meeting any more than he could avoid going to his uncle’s when he was asked. But the day before, following his word to her that he could not be with her that evening, his manner was gayer, less sober, then his supposed affection in the face of her departure would warrant. After all he had known before that she was to be gone for three days. He also knew that nothing weighed on her more than being absent from him any length of time.

At once her mood from one of hopefulness changed to one of deep depression—the blues. Life was always doing things like this to her. Here it was—two days before Christmas, and now she would have to go to Biltz, where there was nothing much but such cheer as she could bring, and all by herself, and after scarcely a moment with him. She returned to her bench, her face showing all the unhappiness that had suddenly overtaken her. Her manner was listless and her movements indifferent—a change which Clyde noticed; but still, because of his sudden and desperate feeling for Sondra, he could not now bring himself to repent.

At one, the giant whistles of some of the neighboring factories sounding the Saturday closing hours, both he and Roberta betook themselves separately to her room. And he was thinking to himself as he went what to say now. What to do? How in the face of this suddenly frosted and blanched affection to pretend an interest he did not feel—how, indeed, continue with a relationship which now, as alive and vigorous as it might have been as little as fifteen days before, appeared exceedingly anemic and colorless. It would not do to say or indicate in any way that he did not care for her any more—for that would be so decidedly cruel and might cause Roberta to say what? Do what? And on the other hand, neither would it do, in the face of his longings and prospects in the direction of Sondra to continue in a type of approach and declaration that was not true or sound and that could only tend to maintain things as they were. Impossible! Besides, at the first hint of reciprocal love on the part of Sondra, would he not be anxious and determined to desert Roberta if he could? And why not? As contrasted with one of Sondra’s position and beauty, what had Roberta really to offer him? And would it be fair in one of her station and considering the connections and the possibilities that Sondra offered, for her to demand or assume that he should continue a deep and undivided interest in her as opposed to this other? That would not really be fair, would it?